Sunday, August 3, 2014

The 'York' and 'Nova' elderberry bushes had a lot of fruit this year so I picked and de-stemmed these:

I made them into a big batch of elderberry syrup. I looked over a bunch of different recipes and went with something like this... put a little bit of water to cover bottom of pan... heat and crush the berries with a potato masher until all the juice is free... put the cooked stuff into a strainer (cup by cup) and stirred/pressed the juice through. Most of the recipes were around 1 cup sugar for 1 cup juice so that's what I started with (4 cups sugar added to the 4 cups of juice). It seemed a little thin though, so I added 2 more cups for a little thicker syrup. Oh and I added quite a bit of lemon juice to give it a little zing (maybe a 1/4 cup). Finished it off with a light dusting of cinnamon and cloves. Brought to a boil and then refrigerated. I plan on freezing some of this for use during the winter, since it's reported by some researchers to shorten the duration of the flu.

Didn't take many pictures of the sickest looking ones but here are some that look promising as a starting point in breeding for better health...

Iris aphylla 'Transylvania Native' looks a lot healthier than the other clones of Iris aphylla I've grown. Here's a clump pf it at my in-law's house.

My reblooming MTB, 'Cricket Song', is pretty healthy.

The old pallida type 'Floridor' is healthier than the average.

My "Pink Volunteer" is still looking decent in mid-summer.

The iris that started me thinking about foliage health in the first place was this seedling ('Rosalie Figge' X aphylla 'Wine Red'). It's always looking relatively clean while everything around it is covered with leaf spot.

This clone of Iris variegata is always looking pretty ratty by mid-summer - so it wouldn't be one I'd want to use in a foliage health breeding program.

This one I'm currently calling by a garden name ("YRFT") is another one that is only average in the foliage health department. But it's a super-vigorous grower and has excellent branching, so I've crossed it with Floridor to try to get the best of both parents combined into one line.